


What She Needs

by callmeonetrack



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-13
Updated: 2017-01-13
Packaged: 2018-09-17 05:07:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9306611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callmeonetrack/pseuds/callmeonetrack
Summary: Kara turns to Lee for comfort after returning from Caprica.





	

Kara bounces the ball against the storage locker wall and frowns. The stitches pull on each swing of her arm, keeping her from forgetting. And all she wants is to forget, forget the way the air on Caprica smelled, not like death, but like the absence of life.

Forget the way Sam looked at her when he handed her the arrow.

Gods, she must have been loopy from the meds they’d been giving her in that damn baby factory. Since when did she get weepy over a frakking one-night stand? And then she’d foolishly promised to get the fleet to come back for them. Even if the commander wasn’t out of commission—a noise rises in her throat at the thought, but she swallows it down—it’s unlikely she could convince them to make such a risky trip back for just a couple dozen people.

It’s all churning inside her, the guilt and the memories and it won’t frakking stop, when suddenly the ball does. The back-and-forth motion is arrested and Kara automatically tilts back to track it and there’s Lee, grinning down at her, not a care in the world.

He bounces the ball off her forehead, like they’re schoolkids at recess, easy as you please, and Kara’s mouth tightens in irritation. Then he frakking walks away with it, slumping down on a bench across the room, yammering on about R&R.

“Can I have my ball back?”

“What, I can't hold it?”

She grits her teeth and gets up, walking over to him. She asks again, adding a “please” even.

“Where'd you get a pyramid ball, anyway?”

Where does he think she got it? Frakking fantasyland? “Caprica. Can I have my ball back, Lee?”

He smiles at her then, and this--oh, this she has forgotten. The way it transforms his whole face when Lee Adama really smiles. “Yeah, sure.” He says, the model of accommodation…except…he juggles it from one hand to the other, doesn’t give it to her.

“Lee?” It’s more a warning than a question, but his grin just grows wider, his eyes crinkling with amusement and Kara is suddenly furious. She can barely breathe with the anger filling her lungs and Kara snaps, lunges for the ball.

Lee is quicker though and he jerks away, stretching his arm out and back, tilting practically horizontal on the wooden bench. Kara leans over him, swiping at his arm, but he wriggles up and out of her reach. It just makes her more angry and before she knows it, Kara is swinging a leg over the bench and over Lee. She sinks down, thighs straddling his ribs, and plants a hand against his chest, holding him down, while she grabs for the ball again. Lee’s breath wooshes out in a gush as she’s sitting on his diaphragm, but his grasp is still strong and suddenly Kara is yelling, “Give it back. GIVE IT BACK, LEE!”

“Whoa, whoa, Kara, okay, OKAY, here.” He gives her the ball finally and she grabs it, holds it to her chest for a split second, like it’ll be snatched from her again. Kara stares down at the pyramid ball, so incongruous here on a spaceship. Her fingers run over the grooved rubber of this horribly useless thing she was able to actually rescue from the planet she once called home. Then with a cry of disgust she hurls it away, watching as it bounces into a dusty far corner. Kara closes her eyes on a shuddering breath and scrubs her hands over her face, wishing she could rub away the images behind her eyelids too.

“Kara,” Lee’s voice is quiet and tentative, almost like he’s scared of her, and he’s shifting under her, but he can’t sit up with her on his chest. Kara doesn’t answer and she doesn’t move, unwilling—unable—to peel her hands away from her face, because she knows if she does it’ll all come tumbling out. Slowly, she feels Lee’s hands closing around her arms, and then he’s tugging, pulling her down to his chest, his arms circling her back and squeezing. She doesn’t struggle.

Lee’s breath is warm, his voice low in her ear as he murmurs. “Kara, hey, I’m sorry. It’s okay, it’s alright, you’re back. You’re home now.”

She wants to tell him _this isn’t home_ and _I went home_ and _It was horrible,_ but what comes out instead is just a stream of nonsense muttered into the warm, stubbled skin of his neck. Finally she chokes out actual words. “You don’t know. You don’t know what it was like. You have no frakking idea.”

Then he’s stroking her head, smoothing her hair, and Kara suddenly feels like she can breathe again.

“You’re right, you’re right. I don’t know. But Kara, I’m your friend, and I love you,” he pauses and her lips curve of their own volition against his neck, and it’s her first smile in hours. Since she got here. When Lee had kissed her. “Whatever you need," he breathes, "if you want to talk about it…”

So she lifts her head and presses her lips to his, hard, muffling the stream of his conversation. Lee’s fingers curl, tangling in her hair and Kara cups his neck with her hands, holding him still. But he doesn’t move to break away, and slowly she relaxes the pressure, her mouth softening against his. She pushes back, sliding down his body for a better position, and the sensation of all that hard muscle against her stomach and between her thighs suckerpunches her with desire suddenly. And Kara could almost cry because she wasn’t sure what the hell that skinjob did to her insides—a dim memory of him telling that blonde copy that he took her ovary tries to filter into her head but she closes the door on that line of thought—but this feels normal. This feels good.

Chasing the high, she kisses Lee without restraint, her lips and tongue claiming his. It’s several minutes before they break apart and his eyes are a little glassy, pupils dilated, when he breathes her name like a question.

She tilts her head down to his, fingers already working at the stiff fabric of his jacket even as her eyes fix on his. “You said whatever I need. This is what I need.”

Kara thinks it’s no good, he’s gonna bolt or insist they have a serious talk first, but Lee just gives her a long look, then he nods. He pushes her back, hands tight on her hips, so he can sit up and strips off his jacket, while Kara does the same. She forgets about the bandage low on her belly until Lee’s fingers are tracing it, a question in his expression. This one she’s going to have to answer she knows, but she can’t tell him all of it, not now, so she just mutters, “Got shot. Stitches.”

He frowns, and she regrets saying anything, so she drapes her arms around his neck and whispers, “It’s fine. You can kiss it better later,” and then she’s tracing a line down his throat with her tongue, sucking on his skin. Lee groans and his fingers clench around her hips, digging into the skin and pulling her closer, closer. She can feel him harden beneath her even through the heavy fabric of the BDUs, and she grinds down into his lap.

He’s kissing a trail down her breastbone, into her cleavage, and then his hands rise, shoving her sports bra up. Kara raises her arms and he’s sliding the fabric up and off. Their hands tangle in the air momentarily and quickly he laces his fingers with hers and sweeps their hands down, arms bending in a wide circle as he holds them behind Kara, against the small of her back. The position makes her chest jut forward and Lee licks a trail down and around one nipple before sucking it into his mouth. Kara gasps, liquid fire burning from the pull of his lips to the core of her. And she wriggles against him, impatient to touch and taste too, but Lee’s hands squeeze hers, tightening his grip and she gets it. They can do this, but he’s setting the pace.

It turns out that the thorough and methodical nature she usually taunts him about is a blessing in disguise. He takes his time, his mouth traveling over her body until Kara’s ready to explode. When he finally lets go of her hands, she runs them down his stomach, fumbles open his fly and wraps a hand around him, squeezing. He’s thick and hard, and Lee’s eyes flutter shut, a grunt echoing from his lips as she strokes him fast and firm. Kara can’t wait any longer; she wants him inside her RFN. So she scrambles off his lap, kicks off shoes and pants, while Lee does the same.

There’s a second then when she stops, because something breaks through to her neatly squared-off brain that this is _Lee,_ and this is probably a terrible, terrible idea. If they do this, she’s probably going to have a whole new, enormous regret to add to that list in her head tomorrow. But though her resolve is faltering, Lee’s isn’t. He reaches for her and pulls her back to him, lips murmuring her name and “need you now” and Kara doesn’t resist him. She climbs back onto his lap, and they’re kissing and kissing, and then she’s rising and sinking down while he fills her. Kara cries out, _Gods!_ and _Yes!_ and _Oh Lee!_ turning into a chant, and she has to lift her hands from his shoulders and reach out for the fence behind him, threading her fingers through the solid chain links as they thrust and rock together, her body threatening to fly apart as she gets closer and closer to the brink. But he anchors her too, arms tight around her, as he drives up and she grinds down, and then they’re breaking, breaking.

Blissful release floods her body, and Kara sags against Lee, her hands slithering down from the fence to his back. His breathing sounds like laughter in her ear, and his arms don’t loosen, they just squeeze her tighter. Kara thinks with a strange sense of detachment that this is about when the guilt and regret and panic should be setting in. She should be feeling trapped.

But she doesn’t, she just feels good. Comfortable. Safe.

Loved.

So Kara rests her head on Lee’s shoulder, and she starts with, “The air on Caprica smelled wrong…”


End file.
